Red Slime Help

[PeteGibbons]

My tank has been running for 5 months. Everything was fine by over time my SPS frags were turning pasty and in the last three weeks I have lost 2 SPS frags and a yuma frag. I tested my water and I was getting 0 nitrate which I thought was good but now realise is bad.
I got some ATI nutrition N from my LFS and started dosing. At the same time i started dosing I changed out my rowa in my reactor. I have dosed for 2 weeks now and nitrate has the faintest hint of pink (so less than 2ppm and likely very close to 0). I have been upping and upping the dose. Nitrate is still pretty much zero but my tank is just having a bloom of red slime (cyano?). Like it’s taking up all the nitrogen I dose and it’s not staying in the water column.
I don’t know what to do?

 

[brandon429]

how many gallons is the tank, can you post a pic of it we need to see certain details from it

using parameter test/response to control it is only one way. what pictures show might bring in other ways

there is a certain way to clean smaller reef tanks that is documented out for years and years in one thread to rid cyano quite well. nothing to buy, only to copy over. it is a different way to clean than the usual siphon some out/partial water change.

 

[PeteGibbons]

how many gallons is the tank, can you post a pic of it we need to see certain details from it

using parameter test/response to control it is only one way. what pictures show might bring in other ways

there is a certain way to clean smaller reef tanks that is documented out for years and years in one thread to rid cyano quite well. nothing to buy, only to copy over. it is a different way to clean than the usual siphon some out/partial water change.

Hi it’s 90 gal.

I can’t really take a photo because I have just done a water change and siphoned.

2 months back I had hair algae and my SPS were pale. In the hunt for getting rid of it I thought feed low and I added rowaphos in a reactor. Hair algae still carried out although my tests showed 0 phosphate and 0 nitrate. I ended up dosing brightewell razor which got rid of the hair algae. Tank was spotless for a month no algae or anything and barely had to clean the glass for 7-10 days. Then corals looked paler and I lost my first frag the Yuma.
I then started researching and found it was prob low nutrients particularly nitrate. I tried to add more fish and feed more but not much changed. So for 2 weeks now I have put my skimmer on a timer for 6 hours a day, fed more, dosed ATI nutrition N and nitrate is still reading pretty much zero but red slime is growing and gets worse every time I increase my dosing.

 

[brandon429]

Honestly thats a huge tank for rip cleaning it is. Commoner approaches are UV filtration (after siphoning out all the mass, install in the clean condition, apply your meds in the clean vs invaded condition)


chemi clean has about 75% happy rate imo


UV about 80-90% and it can’t harm. I have specifically seen chemi clean harm a few reefs, uv never, not one.

rip cleaning is hard work. Here’s someone with a large tank ripped. To show a spectrum of options.

120 gallon rip clean

I’ve decided to perform a rip clean on my 120 with 100% new water. The tank has been running for 5 years and was battling Dino for several months. I used the bacteria method from elegant corals and worked great I haven’t seen Dino in months now. But I tried several other methods including...

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